Patent Issued for Asynchronous virtual collaboration environments (USPTO 11049072)

2021 JUL 21 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11049072, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Ho, An (Phoenix, AZ, US), King, Vicki (Bloomington, IL, US), Little, Rebecca A. (Gilbert, AZ, US), Nussbaum, Bryan R. (Bloomington, IL, US), Simonson, Jacob (Tempe, AZ, US), Stockweather, Deanna L. (Normal, IL, US).

This patent was filed on April 26, 2019 and was published online on June 29, 2021.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Virtual reality (VR) systems have been developed that allow users to view and interact with components of virtual environments. These virtual environments may be either created as fictional environments or digitized representations of physical environments. For example, existing processes may be used to generate virtual environments representing the interior of a famous building or a local area of significance for virtual sight-seeing and tours, such as virtual environments representing the United States Capitol building and grounds. Additionally, multiple-user VR systems exist, but the collaboration capabilities of such systems are inadequate for many purposes, such as collaboration and training relating to assessment of physical sites.

“Asynchronous collaboration creates particular challenges for VR systems. While solutions for asynchronous collaboration outside of virtual environments by sharing electronic documents (e.g., text documents or spreadsheets) are known, asynchronous collaboration in virtual environments would provide more effective collaboration. However, neither current VR systems nor current electronic collaboration systems provide asynchronous collaboration capabilities.

“Various projects across an array of industries require collaborative interaction between individuals on a physical site, such that some of the individuals may need to travel to the physical site. Travel continues to be necessary in many situations because telephony and fixed-point digital image analysis (e.g., video conferences) do not allow the individuals to move about the physical site to address particular issues or concerns as they arise. Additionally, wireless communication is often insufficient or unreliable at such sites. Travel is time-consuming, inconvenient, and costly. In some situations, experts may be nearly constantly travelling to various sites to collaborate with local individuals. For example, expert trainers such as business underwriting specialists frequently travel to meet with local trainees such as insurance agents to provide training and expert analysis of local sites, such as commercial properties in a town. Considerable improvements in time and cost efficiency could be achieved if such individuals could collaborate remotely, but existing systems are ineffective in facilitating such collaboration.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present application discloses methods, systems, and computer-readable media storing instructions to facilitate asynchronous virtual collaboration between remote users. As described herein, the disclosed aspects improve existing VR systems by adding asynchronous collaborative capabilities to virtual environments, thereby enabling remote users to interact effectively with each other without requiring them to share a single virtual collaboration session. Various aspects are summarized below and described in further detail herein.

“The present application discloses methods, systems, and computer-readable media storing instructions for recording virtual collaboration between a plurality of users during a virtual collaboration session. This may include establishing a first communication connection via a communication network with a first virtual environment interface device associated with a first user of the plurality of users; establishing a second communication connection via the communication network with a second virtual environment interface device associated with a second user of the plurality of users; establishing a communication channel between the first user and the second user via the first and second communication connections for facilitating bidirectional communication by routing real-time communication data between the first user and the second user during the virtual collaboration session; providing a virtual environment representing a physical location including a building to the first and second virtual environment interface devices for presentation to the first and second users; causing one or more data capture tools to be presented to at least the second user within the virtual environment; receiving a data capture command from the second user (which data capture command may be associated with a data capture tool of the one or more data capture tools); determining an environmental state of the virtual environment relative to the second user at the time of the data capture command based upon the data capture tool; generating a limited representation of the virtual environment based upon the data capture command and the environmental state; and/or storing the limited representation of the virtual environment for later review.

“In some embodiments, the data capture tool may be a virtual camera tool. In such embodiments, the environmental state of the virtual environment may include a viewing perspective of the second user within the virtual environment, and the limited representation of the virtual environment may be a fixed-view two-dimensional image from the viewing perspective of the second user. The environmental state of the virtual environment may further include a viewing window centered on a gaze location of the second user, in which case the fixed-view two-dimensional image may capture the viewing window.

“In further embodiments, the data capture tool may be a video recording tool. In such embodiments, the environmental state of the virtual environment may include a plurality of movements and viewing perspectives of the second user within the virtual environment, and the limited representation of the virtual environment may include a recording of the movements and the viewing perspectives of the second user over a time period during the virtual collaboration session. The movements of the second user may include repositioning within the virtual environment and hand movements of the second user within the virtual environment. Additionally, the recording may include an avatar representing the movements of the second user within the virtual environment.

“In still further embodiments, the data capture tool may be a user annotation tool, which may be configured to capture a representation of a region of the virtual environment and a user annotation associated with the region of the virtual environment. In such embodiments, the environmental state of the virtual environment may include a position of the second user within the virtual environment, and the limited representation of the virtual environment may include the representation of the region of the virtual environment and the user annotation. The annotation may include a representation of a measurement of a physical distance at the physical location generated from a virtual distance between locations within the virtual environment.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method for recording virtual collaboration between a plurality of users during a virtual collaboration session, comprising: establishing, via a communication network, a first communication connection with a first virtual environment interface device associated with a first user of the plurality of users; establishing, via the communication network, a second communication connection with a second virtual environment interface device associated with a second user of the plurality of users; establishing, by one or more processors, a communication channel between the first user and the second user via the first and second communication connections for facilitating bidirectional communication by routing real-time communication data between the first user and the second user during the virtual collaboration session; providing, by the one or more processors, a virtual environment representing a physical location including a building to the first and second virtual environment interface devices for presentation to the first and second users; causing, by the one or more processors, one or more data capture tools to be presented to at least the second user within the virtual environment, wherein the one or more data capture tools include a virtual video recording tool configured to capture recordings within the virtual environment; receiving, by the one or more processors and at a first time, a first data capture command from the second user, wherein the first data capture command is executable by the virtual video recording tool; causing, by the one or more processors and based on the first data capture command, the virtual video recording tool to capture a recording, within the virtual environment, from a viewing perspective of the second user within the virtual environment; determining, by the one or more processors and based on the recording, an environmental state of the virtual environment relative to the second user at the first time, wherein the environmental state indicates the viewing perspective of the second user; generating, by the one or more processors, a limited representation of the virtual environment based upon the recording and the environmental state, wherein the limited representation includes: an annotation providing an assessment of the building, and a virtual video illustrating: the viewing perspective of the second user, and an avatar representing movements of the second user within the virtual environment, and associated with the building; storing, in a computer memory, the limited representation of the virtual environment for later review; and causing, by the one or more processors, a recording of the limited representation of the virtual environment to be presented on a display of a computing device associated with a third user; the recording including the avatar.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the one or more processors, a second data capture command from the second user, wherein the second data capture command is executable by a virtual camera tool; and the limited representation of the virtual environment includes a fixed-view two-dimensional image from the viewing perspective of the second user.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein: the environmental state of the virtual environment indicates a viewing window centered on a gaze location of the second user; and the fixed-view two-dimensional image captures the viewing window.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein: the environmental state of the virtual environment indicates the movements of the second user within the virtual environment; and the limited representation includes the virtual video illustrating the movements of the second user over a time period during the virtual collaboration session.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein: the movements of the second user include repositioning within the virtual environment and hand movements of the second user within the virtual environment.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the one or more processors, a second data capture command from the second user, wherein the second data capture command is executable by a user annotation tool configured to capture a representation of a region of the virtual environment and the annotation associated with the region of the virtual environment; the environmental state of the virtual environment indicates a position of the second user within the virtual environment; and the limited representation of the virtual environment includes the representation of the region of the virtual environment and the annotation.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the annotation includes a representation of a measurement of a physical distance at the physical location generated from a virtual distance between locations within the virtual environment.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: accessing, by a processor of the computing device via the communication network, a recording of the virtual collaboration session, wherein the recording of the virtual collaboration session includes a plurality of limited representations of the virtual environment, including the limited representation of the virtual environment.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising: receiving, by the processor, a user note associated with a portion of the limited representation of the virtual environment from the third user; and storing, in the computer memory, a record of the user note indicating the portion of the limited representation of the virtual environment, wherein the record of the user note is stored separately from the limited representation of the recording of the virtual collaboration session.

“10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the user note includes an evaluation of actions of the second user during the virtual collaboration session relating to assessment of the building based at least in part upon the first data capture command from the second user.

“11. A computer system for recording virtual collaboration between a plurality of users during a virtual collaboration session, comprising: one or more processors; a communication module communicatively connected to the one or more processors and configured to communicate with computing devices via a communication network; a non-transitory program memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors and storing executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to: establish a first communication connection via the communication module with a first virtual environment interface device associated with a first user of the plurality of users; establish a second communication connection via the communication module with a second virtual environment interface device associated with a second user of the plurality of users; establish a communication channel between the first user and the second user via the first and second communication connections for facilitating bidirectional communication by routing real-time communication data between the first user and the second user during the virtual collaboration session; provide a virtual environment representing a physical location including a building to the first and second virtual environment interface devices for presentation to the first and second users; cause one or more data capture tools to be presented to at least the second user within the virtual environment, wherein the one or more data capture tools include a virtual video recording tool configured to capture recordings within the virtual environment; receive, at a first time, a first data capture command from the second user, wherein the first data capture command is executable by the virtual video recording tool; cause, based on the first data capture command, the virtual video recording tool to capture a recording, within the virtual environment, from a viewing perspective of the second user within the virtual environment; determine, based on the recording, an environmental state of the virtual environment relative to the second user at the first time, wherein the environmental state indicates the viewing perspective of the second user; generate a limited representation of the virtual environment based upon the recording and the environmental state, wherein the limited representation includes: an annotation providing an assessment of the building, and a virtual video illustrating: the viewing perspective of the second user, and an avatar representing movements of the second user within the virtual environment, and associated with the building; store the limited representation of the virtual environment for later review in the non-transitory program memory; and cause a recording of the limited representation of the virtual environment to be presented on a display of a computing device associated with a third user; the recording including the avatar.

“12. The computer system of claim 11, further comprising: receive a second data capture command from the second user, wherein the second data capture command is executable by a virtual camera tool; and the limited representation of the virtual environment includes a fixed-view two-dimensional image from the viewing perspective of the second user.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Ho, An. Asynchronous virtual collaboration environments. U.S. Patent Number 11049072, filed April 26, 2019, and published online on June 29, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11049072.PN.&OS=PN/11049072RS=PN/11049072

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